Monday, November 28, 2005

Or how about this?

Brown to Make Statistics Office Independent

U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown said the National Statistics office will become independent of government control, a move aimed at bolstering the credibility of Britain's economic data.

The statistics office will be run by an independent board of governors, Brown said, and will have a similar degree of autonomy as the Bank of England. An announcement early next year will detail when the change takes effect and how the office will be funded.

This is important for a number of reasons - it representing the theft of a Conservative policy and it being the right thing to do being just two. It's also worth pointing out that it will probably never happen- the announcement of an announcement has all the hallmarks of an exercise in spin.